Thanks much for your help guys. Some more info. The rooms in my place (fortunately) are fairly large. I now have an A/B setup so I can check the two. Yes, I did equalize the volumes to a certain extent. All of the vortexes are open.

More observations:a. The M80s are more efficient than the M100's (fewer drivers should help, the sensitivity now depends on the crossover)b. The tweeters on the M100 are supposedly better, but the attack, decay and general quality of treble (including cymbals, wire brushes) seem superior on the M80-v3c. Yes, the bottom-line bass on the M100 is indeed superiord. I placed the speakers at least 36" from the back wall, 2' from the side walls, and toed them in a little (about the same on both sides - don't know the angle, but maybe 5 degrees?

Observations:1. Like yesterday, if I say in the same room as the music system, the M80s are far superior - sound quality, attack, decay and IMAGING. The m100s have seriously muddled imaging2. Go to the next room, and put a half wall between the speakers and me, and this is NOT intuitive - the IMAGING of the M100s gets really sharp. The M80's - get muddled and are not sharp!!!!3. I listen to most of my music walking around, but when I want to listen critically, I do not want to go to the next room over.4. M100's imaging is AWESOME with fewer instruments. What I said above regarding imaging applies to a large orchestras.

Some of this makes sense, most of it does not (to me).

THANKS!!!!!Bapcha

Edited by BapchaMan (05/02/1410:17 PM)Edit Reason: I DID NOT COMPLETE THE POST

Your M80v3s are a little over one year old so they have the v4 crossovers. This means you are in the same family of products from a family of curves perspective (M80, M80HP, and M100) all v4. But given your large space and powerful amplifier you are going to be able to fully utilize the advantages of the M100 with its much more powerful low frequency max SPL.

Due to the higher mass of the individual bass drivers the M100 will be slightly less efficient than the M80 regular version. This will affect the A/B results outside of the expected differences in the bass region as you are not quite at equal level. There is also the position to take into account. I would suggest disconnecting the wires from all the speakers and flipping their positions so the M80s are where the M100s are now and vice versa. Hook the wires back up so what is now A becomes B. You will still have that slight efficiency difference with the M80s playing slightly louder than the M100s but you can try to adjust for that with a small movement of the volume knob.

At the end of the day though you may be better to just put the M100s in the position that they sound the best and spend a few weeks just listening to them in your normal way; then draw your conclusion at the end. Without an exact level match and a blind screen A/B testing is a tough thing to garner results from.

The overall performance should be quite similar in most respects between the M80 and the M100 but with a big gain in the low frequency area with the M100s, especially at higher volume.

I want to thank (or blame) BapchaMan for convincing me to go with the m100's instead of the m80v4 HP.

The kind of reviews that sell me are those that:1) use separate components in a 2 channel system2) give direct comparisons to known speakers. I have read for example "The m80 v4 handily outperform my B&W x.xx model" and "The M-80 v4 can go toe to toe with $7,000 Vienna acoustics"

I am prepping to order some new m-100's and need to wipe the saliva off my solar powered keyboard.

Haha - did not revisit the forums until today. Hope you like the M100's Scottinwa. I like the M100's more now (I closed the two top ports at the back on both the left and right speakers). This substantially improves imaging - at the expense of bass response - (there is still enough low end).

I added outriggers after the fact (good for stability of these tall slim speakers)

Bottom-line: 1. I have now forgotten what the M80's sounded like2. M100's are very nice. They do require a lot of amp oomph it seems like3. While I did not believe in break-in, I think my ears were broken-in by the speakers4. For some reason, it still sounds better in "the next room over" than the listening couch

To answer your question, "I have now forgotten what the M80's sounded like", you probably just have to sit down in front of your M100's to get your answer. Since you've blocked a bunch of ports in your M100's then you probably have roughly the equivalent of unblocked M80 HP's or slightly less. Tweeter and mid-range driver layout are identical between the 2 models as you know.

Haha! So I bought an M100v4 and forced it to sound like the M80v3 (but with a v4 cross-over per Ian). There is a small difference between the M80's and 100's - and that obviously is in the bottom-end at larger output levels.

I think the metal tweeters too sound like the ones with plastic flashing - except at higher volume levels. So, turn up the volume to hear the differences :-)

The SWR-M100 is designed to work in virtually any type of enclosure. It can work in a sealed or vented enclosure, or infinite baffle for the widest application.This is 10". In addition to this , I want to know about a new model that constitutes much better thing.